


Spin

by Guede



Category: Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Genre: Accidental Cuddling, Canon Character of Color, Closeted Character, College, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, Interracial Relationship, Jealousy, Long-Distance Relationship, Major Character Injury, Male-Female Friendship, Masturbation in Shower, Post-Canon, Sexuality Crisis, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27744571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: Life and love are rarely as straightforward as black and white, or truth and lies. Jess, Jules, Joe and Tony try to figure out the rules of the new playing field on which they are and what positions they're now playing in relation to each other. They don't always tell the truth to themselves, but they can't always tell where not knowing ends and lying begins, either.
Relationships: Jess Bhamra/Joe, Jess Bhamra/Jules Paxton, Joe/Tony (Bend It Like Beckham)
Kudos: 2





	1. Peanuts

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LiveJournal in 2005.

There’s a rainbow outside. It’s perfectly circular, a loop of colors hanging in the air and it looks like a dream. Next to it is a cloud and Jess wishes on it, wishes _at_ it. She tells it just a little more, a little right, and it listens. It slips right through to score and she almost forgets that one, it’s not footie and two, they’re on a plane and that’s even a worse place for cheering loudly than up in her room when her parents are entertaining downstairs.

But it really is a dream. Her lips are still tingling from Joe’s mouth, even though the stewardess has been around twice and Jess, remembering her mother’s teary last-minute advice, has been staying hydrated. Her eyes are tingling from seeing _David Beckham_ on the very day she got to leave home and fly free, to land in America with a pitch waiting for her and no disapproving eyes to elude. She can’t help but tap her feet with excitement and she still hasn’t opened the little snack bag because her stomach is so queasy she’d probably upchuck.

Her shoulder is asleep. Or rather, it’s numb and Jules is asleep on it. She’d bounced on the plane and babbled with Jess—squeezed Jess’ wrist so hard during take-off that Jess would’ve winced if she hadn’t been squeezing Jules’ wrist right back—giggling over Beckham and worrying about American dorms and complaining about how her mother had woken her at five. In. The. Morning. Packing and repacking Jules’ bag, fretting about stupid things like whether customs would let you bring enough hairspray to do up the Statue of Liberty. Unspoken was that Jules had only been sleeping for an hour when her mother had come in because she and Jess had sneaked out for one last, laughing game on their home pitch.

She’d talked of American boys, too, and how she had heard they were all surfers with blond hair and laidback attitudes. There had been a bright, bright glint in her eye and her voice had run on just a little too fast, but Jess hadn’t seen any lingering accusation and so Jess thought it was fine. She hopes it was fine. It was going to be crazy enough just getting the parents to come round to _this_ without also losing Jules’ support.

But Jess doesn’t want to think about that yet. Not when they aren’t even halfway over the Atlantic—and that is an amazing blue. Deep and shining and a little like Joe’s eyes when the light caught them right.

The head on Jess’ shoulder shifts, then drowsily tilts to look at Jess. Jules smiles, nervousness and exhilaration still seeping past the sleepiness, and grabs Jess’ hand. “We there yet?”

“No, we’re not there yet. We haven’t even gotten fed yet.” Bangs are falling in Jules’ face and Jess brushes them out of the way, grinning herself. First girlfriend ever—Pinky had always been three paces ahead of Jess and veering towards the boys, and the other girls had never known where Jess had been coming from and hadn’t cared if it didn’t get off guys’ shirts. It’s a warmth in Jess and it makes up for how her shoulder is cramping. She doesn’t make Jules move.

“Oh, God. I looked at the menu and it sounds so good you know it’ll be utter crap. Look—” Jules kicks at a plastic-bagged box in her footspace. “Last fish ‘n chips. It’ll be cold and slimy, but—”

Jess groans at the thought of no more fish ‘n chips. No more of her mom’s aloo gobi and flatbread. None of her dad’s funny stories from work, no hanging out in the park with Tony. No Joe till winter break, and that’s so far away that it’s a good and a bad thing.

“Hey. Hey. I meant to cheer you up.” Frowning, Jules reaches over and pushes Jess’ chin up. Then she puts the tip of her thumb against one corner of Jess’ mouth, tries to put the tip of her index finger in the other corner and misses. Second try, she gets it and now she’s making Jess smile. “Come on. _California_. Beaches. I’ve never seen a beach. Oh, do you think there’ll be sharks?”

It’s so stupid it’s funny. It’s so simple it makes all the complications whirling in Jess’ head calm down. “Well, we don’t have to go in the water,” Jess says.

That makes the tips of Jules’ finger and thumb slip into her mouth. So Jules wrinkles her nose at Jess, and Jess makes a pretend snap at Jules’ hand, like she is a shark. Her tongue accidentally grazes warm flesh because Jules is slow to pull away. Startled, Jules stares at Jess with a funny look that makes Jess want to duck her head and blush without knowing why. But then Jules cracks another grin and suddenly they’re laughing till the man across the aisle gives them nasty glares.

“Nah, we don’t,” Jules murmurs, snuggling into Jess’ shoulder. “Wake me when it’s time to eat, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jess glances back out the window and she sees that the rainbow is gone, behind them. For a moment, she’s sorry because she’d meant to tell Jules, but then she figures it’s all right. She didn’t really see Beckham but she saw this, and Jules saw Beckham but missed this, so it’s all even. It’s good. Jess is going to America and she’s leaving behind everything except Jules, and it’s good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally written for the LJ contrelamontre community 'travel' challenge, and done in 32 minutes.


	2. Ellipsis

It’s the tail end of a hard game, a match against a team they thought would be a snow-in but who turned out to have grit and snap in them. Tooth-and-nail fighting for every point, and every point matched by another one going up on the wrong side of the board.

First they’d been taken by surprise, and then they’d been taken by the grind, the slow relentless pressure that hadn’t ever let up. At breaks, they’d just hung their heads nearly to their knees and breathed hard, breathed deep and rasping. Their voices had been low gravelly things, crawling about for an edge-hold on any glimmer of hope, and their eyes as they’d hacked together a last strategy had been dull, wrung-out pieces of lead.

Jess remembers Jules had tried to smile and instead had ended up grimacing. The other girl had leaned down and pressed the heel of her hand into the back of her thigh, massaging and grunting and still stretching her mouth into a pained soundless whine. But when Jess had asked, she’d gotten the brush-off and the smile that, somehow, had been genuine enough to break through the exhaustion and the sour creep of impending defeat. So Jess had let it go. Now she wishes she’d stayed, she’d pushed Jules, she’d checked herself. She should’ve known better, after all. Between her and Joe—

\--but it had been the last seconds of the game and Jules was sprinting up the field, dribbling and weaving, driving forward like a bullet and dodging like Beckham himself. She’d made a beautiful, impossible steal and then she’d side-swiped to come rushing towards Jess, lurking at the far end. Her hair whipped in her face and her face was nothing but a red howling mouth, but she still looked like glory and like a win and Jess had been deafened by the rising cheers. They’d pumped her blood till her vision had gone blurry and she had had to blink like crazy, trying to clear it and squinting for the ball.

It was Jules, she remembered telling herself, and that’d calmed herself enough for the ball to shoot to the cradle of her instep. The impact stung even through Jess’ sneaker, but she barely felt it because suddenly they had a shot, _she_ had a shot and she took it, and it was a gorgeous swooping bend that just crashed past the goalie’s outstretched hands. Jess had thrown up her arms and screamed.

Then the silence had smashed down, worse rebuke than even her mother’s speechless tears.

She’d turned. Maybe because of a whisper, maybe because of the sudden cold in her stomach, but either way she’d turned and there was Jules lying on the ground. Kelly screaming in one of her opponents’ faces, nails raking the air inches from the girl’s cheeks. Stretchermen streaking from the far end of the field.

Jess doesn’t remember how she got to Jules’ side, but her knees are burning and they slide when she shifts her weight, sliding on something wet that easily scrapes off to let the grass-juice sting, so she must have skidded at some point. She’s got something in her hand and she realizes what it is only after someone tells her to not hold Jules’ hand so hard. Her throat hurts and it’s words, she suddenly thinks. Words that cut and rake because she’s babbling them haphazardly, not taking the time to organize them, but Jules’ face is so pale.

Jules isn’t moving. Her eyelashes are black against white and her mouth is parted just enough for Jess to see the edge of teeth. But that’s when the trainers rush in, blocking her from view and all Jess has, all Jess can see is the hand she won’t let go. She squeezes it and she clumsily, frantically feels for the pulse. When someone barks at her to let go, her hair slaps her face as she shakes her head and something in her eyes tells them to back off.

It’s just the hand Jess sees. Nothing but that. Long-fingered, scabby-knuckled, ragged in the nail. Just the hand, just the hand, just the hand.

There’s a long sigh. The fingers flex. From somewhere deep in Jess’ throat comes a precipitate sound of joy, too early for her muscles to have relaxed so it’s strangled and emerges a whine. But who cares?

Jules is awake. Jules is laughing weakly, and ignoring all questions to ask: “Did you get it in?”

Jess laughs, too, though it hurts. Presses the hand she’s got to her forehead. “Yeah. Yeah, we got it.”

And when Jules lets out a weak cheer, Jess sees shoe-switching and German nightclubs. Sees an airplane ride where they were terrified and grabbed at each other to so they’d know it was okay, cracked jokes to break the fear. Sees long summer days on the pitch, long winter nights curling together in one bed and beating their brains over classwork.

Jess sees what she could’ve lost. It makes her heart catch.

She looks up. Five minutes on the clock, and her whole world’s bent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for the LJ cues community 'five minutes' challenge and done in 31 minutes.


	3. Surface Tension

The Bharmas still think he’s going to marry Jess someday. It’s a convenient stall, so Jess hasn’t ever mentioned different and Tony isn’t going to if she doesn’t. His mother pressures him every time he gets a long-distance call, coyly asking how America is for a Punjabi girl and whether the Americans’ bad habits are corrupting his friend yet. She’s already made one comment about that girl needing a good strong husband with a…good strong will…to straighten her out, and…

Well, normally he’d just nod and smile, because that’s his mother, who cooks delicious curry and who drops off a pot of coffee beside him at midnight when he’s studying for an exam, who shudders at the bare legs of storefront mannequins and who pounces on the slightest deviation from the norm with all the glee of a cat with a mouse. But that time maybe he was tired, maybe he forgot and he didn’t smile. He might have glared. Tony can’t exactly remember because luckily he had an exam and he had to run out the door, but he does know that afterwards there wasn’t a peep out of her. At least, not more than a small disapproving noise whenever the Bharmas pass, and a sly look whenever Tony answers the phone with “Jess! Hey!”

Funny how she didn’t bat an eye the few times she’s caught him talking to Joe on the streetcorner, but then, boys are supposed to push boundaries. At least it makes it easier on Joe, who is wary of Tony’s mother in a way that’s almost painful to watch.

Nobody tells the man anything, not even Jules’ parents—or maybe it’s that Jules’ mother gives Joe weird looks; Tony never got the story straight in between Joe’s embarrassed muttering and the noise of the lorry going by—so he’s reduced to loitering around, hoping to catch Tony on the way to somewhere. Once in a while Tony invites Joe in, or asks if he just wants to set up a regular beer, but Joe’s keeping busy with his new team and he always says no, just after a long discussion of his latest woes and just before he blinks, looks confused, and asks after Jess.

He used to ask about Jess first, but not too seriously because they both knew there was something going on over the phone lines. Then it was Joe being desperate and even more uncomfortable at the same time as he tried to casually sneak in a query; that stopped when Tony finally figured it out and told him there weren’t any issues with Jess having a white boyfriend from Tony’s view. But by then they’d already gotten into the habit of talking footie to get Joe calmed down, to give him an opening, and after Joe relaxed it was just easy to keep on doing the same time.

It’s like everything else, Tony guesses. Like the Bharmas pretending their daughter’s going to stop her changing at the footie and be the same with everything else. Like Tony’s mother thinking he’s got a girl—a little Americanized, maybe, but workable—and he’ll give her those button-eyed grandchildren she wants. Like Joe drifting further and further from Jess, like Jess talking more about Jules than about classes or family or yeah, Joe. Even like Tony, who enjoys footie in the park with the guys not just because it’s fun but also because then he’s got an excuse to stare. Who agreed with Jess that Joe was a dream, and then got to know him even better, which only strengthens his agreement in ways that are going to start tripping him up if he doesn’t watch it. 

They’re all coasting along on top, looking straight ahead. But there’s too many of them, Tony thinks. Someday someone’s going to trip, and then everyone’s going to have to look down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for the LJ cues community 'fiction' challenge and done in 23 minutes.


	4. Sampler

It was a stupid idea, maybe. Seemed all right at first—find out more about Jess’ background so the next time Joe went around her parents’ place, he wouldn’t feel quite so out of his depth. At least he would know what the food was, and if he couldn’t figure out what to say, then he wouldn’t have to stand about looking like a gap-mouthed prat. But now he was staring at the little lumps of food all mashed together in the big plastic tray Tony had dropped off, and he was thinking it was a completely moronic idea. Yeah, sure, food would solve everything. One mouthful and he’d magically be an Indian and everything would be all right.

He should’ve asked Tony to stay. Aside from the fact that the other man could help talk Joe through this minor panic he was having, it would’ve been only polite. Tony wasn’t even his friend—he was Jess’ and rightly speaking, he should have stayed as far away from Joe as possible instead of helping him. After all, everything in Jess’ life had been fine before Joe and footie had come along. Without him, there wouldn’t have been Jess hiding from her own family, and there wouldn’t have been Jules and Jess nearly splitting up.

No, that was stupid. Jules brought Jess to the team in the first place; not that Joe was blaming it all on Jules, because she obviously hadn’t been trying to cause any distress. And neither had he.

But despite knowing that, somehow Joe still felt guilty. He’d felt the cold twisty feeling starting when he’d seen Jess, beautiful and shy, walking out of that German hotel, and while it’d gone away after Jess had somehow reconciled with her family, it’d only come back stronger when he’d watched her plane soar away. Her taste on his lips, her parents uncomfortably hiding their tears behind him, and him with the thought that it was all wrong.

Joe had hoped that maybe the problem was time, because he’d still been her coach then, but after two months he knew that wasn’t it. He had another two months before Jess came home for winter break and before it was no longer the safe distance of a telephone call, and he was praying as hard as possible that he’d figure it out before then. But all he had to do was see Tony’s face, smiling and understanding and tacitly accepting, and then Joe knew he was no closer to untangling the knot in his gut.

The food was getting cold. It’d be a shame to waste Tony’s efforts, especially since he was going out of his way to help Joe. He was Jess’ friend, and Joe had already made enough trouble among Jess’ friends and family than to be starting anymore.

Very slowly, Joe picked up his spoon and tried the first brightly-colored heap. It burned his tongue, but it didn’t warm his stomach any. Still, he kept eating because he didn’t want to disappoint Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for the LJ contrelamontre community 'meal mini-challenge' and done in 20 minutes.


	5. Subtext

It’s sunny here in America, sunny like bright lemonade, and it’s free wind and no parents, and it’s good. Jess has her dorm with Jules, so they’ve defied all the horror stories about roommates—anyway, what’s left for them to fight over?—and they’re just two girls, laughing and sipping colas while they pace out the perimeter of the pitch. Or they’re kicking up their heels, faces upturned to watch the floating black-and-white center of their world. Sometimes classes interfere because Jules can take math and science only in terms of trajectories and crosswind speed and Jess is only now getting used to this arguing thing let alone seeing it as the way to get the grade. Sometimes it’s staring at a limp packet of McDonald’s fries and suddenly moaning for a good basket of chips, like Jules did once and nearly got herself an ambulance called ‘cause they thought she was having a stroke or something. Sometimes it’s having the window open and the fan on to blow out the smoke while trying to improvise aloo gobi on a hallmate’s hotplate ‘cause Jess just can’t take the cafeteria curry anymore, not with the way she wants to cry in it as if that’d improve the taste. Sometimes it’s this or that, but they always come back to their little bit of green field.

Jess worried a little about Jules near the beginning. Jules said it was all good and settled, but the first time she answered the phone and it was Joe calling, her smile got all tense and she didn’t look at Jess when she handed over the phone. Later Jess found Jules slamming a ball around the field, working her charges in a way that was going to save the game at a meet about two weeks later. When the coach took them all out afterward, Jules was flushed and giggling and she wouldn’t stop saying it was only Jess set her up so well, but still. After that, Jess kind of hinted to Joe that calling her isn’t such a good idea, that she’ll call him instead.

For a while that works out, but lately it seems as if Joe’s always letting his answering machine handle this side of the ocean. He has a new team to train up, and his two best players gone to boot, so of course he’s busy. Jess can understand. Really. Maybe she sat on the bed once and read half-a-chapter of physics without knowing a single word, but she was dribbling past girls half-a-head taller than her the next day and she just felt so damned good when she shot that ball through the impossible gap that she forgot even to try calling till the week after.

“You curse like an American now,” Tony teases her as he grabs her to him, careless of the shoulderbag thumping them both in the side. “What’ll I tell your parents? They think America’s all NYPD Blues and movie stars blowing up the freeway.”

“Oh, shut up.” Jess is that happy again, so happy that she almost knocked Tony back onto the escalator when she hugged him. It’s been one hundred days since she left England and now a little bit of it is coming for a week, and she can say ‘damn’ and ‘fuck’ if she wants to. The parents don’t _have_ to know.

Anyway, if they did know even a little, they’d die of shock. It was hard enough to make them understand about the footie, and now that life is all crushed-grass stains on knees and late-night giggle-fests, Jess just…wants to wait a little. She’ll tell them, eventually. She’s being easy on them; she knows how hard it is.

She’s got her arm through Tony’s arm and for a moment he stares at her, but then he sort of shrugs and grins it off. It makes Jess wince a little bit before she does the same, remembering that there’s no nosy mother’s friend to make a marriage out of a friendship. She’s used to doing it with Jules, and Tony’s from even farther back. “So come on, what’re you doing here? Your mother wouldn’t let you come just so you can check on a girl that didn’t even have sense to marry you.”

“Oh, she only said that once. She just was hoping I’d get settled before I finished college, that’s all. She’ll get over it.” Tony says, adjusting his bag. He’s thinned out a little, gotten some muscle on him. Jess can feel it in his arm. “But yeah, aside from getting to see what America’s been doing to you—I’ve been offered a good shot at grad school here. Figured I could take a look around and all—”

“That’s great! You’d be right here and I could…” And Jess babbles on and on, dragging them all over campus and grinning and smiling so hard that she almost doesn’t hear Tony. “What?”

He’s panting hard, she only now notices. But he just waves off her concern and mutters something funny and self-mocking about not able to keep up with the girls, and when he taps her arm, it’s because _he’s_ looking worried about her. “Hey, are you sure you’re all right? You sound like—”

Like she misses home. And yeah, Jess does, but it’s not a hurting thing. It’s just this…little bit on the edge, and it’s been there for a while without her being able to do anything about it. So when it goes away, yeah, it’s going to be a bit of a snap. “No, I’m fine. I’m fine. Really.”

“Okay.” Tony shrugs again, keeps waiting for something. Finally he looks around and fiddles with his pockets, too casual to be uncomfortable. “So’s Joe, if you wanted to know.”

“Oh,” Jess says, and it’s not quite how she should have said it. “Oh. Oh, great! Yeah, I…yeah. I miss him, but it’s not so bad because there’s footie and classes keep me busy, and there’s Jules.”

Jules, who isn’t here and who Tony is now looking for, once Jess had reminded him. Jules, who sucks hair into her mouth when she sleeps and who’s always trading help on essays for help on physics. If she hadn’t come to America with Jess…well, Jess doesn’t think she could’ve done it without her. “She’s got a boyfriend. His birthday’s today, so they went out. But she says hi.”

“Hi back, then,” Tony replies, trying to grin Jess into grinning. “Hey, I shouldn’t be worrying on Joe’s behalf about anyone—”

“What? No—oh, no no no.” That makes Jess smile, though she’s still mad inside about how this is Tony and suddenly everything is strained when it shouldn’t be. She wishes Jules were here, after all. She thought it would be okay, that after she’d stepped on that plane everything had fallen into place and that she’d have a clear shot. But she guesses the game’s not quite over yet, and she wants her partner back. There’s no one else who can read her moves so well. “Me? Nah.”

Tony laughs, though it’s quieter and more uneasy. “Come on. Don’t tell me I’m the only boy for you.”

The words fall flat because Jess can’t quite get her feet under them in time to loft them back up. She smiles and stares at Tony, and finally they lean towards each other and laugh in confusion.

“Let me drop off the bag and then you can tell me all about Jules and America,” he says.

“And you tell me all about Joe and London,” Jess says right back, too fast. The sun’s still bright and she hooks her arm through his, and they both pretend they hadn’t gotten it all wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for the LJ contrelamontre community 'one hundred' challenge and done in 44 minutes. Quotes a lyric from 'That's What I Get' by NIN.


	6. Steam Pressure

Showering in the dorm was tricky even without considering timing. First there was the shower shoes, and remembering to look out for vomit splatters in the corner because for some reason, everyone figured it was easier to rinse last night’s hang-over down the shower drains instead of flushing it. Then there was remembering everything else; Jules’ room was nearly at the other end of the hall, and so if she happened to forget her towel or her shampoo, she had to risk a run back. It shouldn’t have been any worse than in the locker room, but in the locker room she didn’t have to worry about boys ambling around, begging Jesus for her towel to slip.

All right, that wasn’t so bad. They were single-minded jerks, but it was kind of flattering. Whenever Jules’ mom called up wanting to know about the American “scene,” Jules didn’t have to lie in order to reassure her, and that meant no lingering queasy feeling in her stomach. Timing, on the other hand, had no upside.

Early morning was a no-go because there were either footie drills or the morning jog Jules resorted to in order to wake up (coffee gave her headaches). Late morning, the janitors had usually taken over the bathrooms. Then there wasn’t time till after dinner, but it seemed like everyone wanted to take a shower then. That was when Jess preferred taking hers, when she hadn’t gotten a chance to after practice.

Jess had been shy even back in England, always hanging back and showering after the rest of the team. At first, she’d done the same in California, but inch by inch she’d loosened up till she had stripped down and shoved in with the rest. Soap suds cream against her skin, the film tinted like the froth on top of a cappuccino latte. She’d tried to keep herself turned towards the wall, but the jokes that flew thick about the showers kept her head twisting to laugh over her shoulder so that eventually she had just faced however it seemed natural. Some girls flaunted themselves, making jokes as crude as men’s about other men’s dicks, but Jess didn’t. If her breasts happened to round beneath her moving hands, nipples playing peek-a-boo with her fingers, then they just happened to do that. If the dark tapering hairs between her legs rumpled between the rivulets of water in temporary sensuous curls, then they just happened to do that. If when she stepped out, her hand was slow in draping a towel over the smooth slope of her arse, then that just happened. Accidentally. That was all.

And if Jules’ face grew warmer than the hot streams of water and her head swam with the steam-sea of the room, if her hands pressed harder and higher between her legs and nicked her clit with her nails, then that didn’t just happen. It didn’t.

Jess would never go for it. Worse yet, her family would have every reason to whisk her back to the safety of her arms, and Jules’ mother would just—she’d—something explosive, anyhow.

So Jules took her showers late at night, when sometimes the water ran lukewarm because so many others had been there before her. Then, there was no one around to hear her breath come a little short, maybe. Or the slap of her hand against the wall for balance while her fingers rubbed hard, harder, hardest. Rough enough to chafe the skin, and God, that’d be a bad thing to have to explain to Jess.

Jess, Jess, Jess. Girl that just matched Jules so well, that could tell stories in smiles and that could cut deeper than even Jules’ mother, who supposedly knew her best. Long legs with the scar that always rippled the suds oddly, long black hair that only came down in the shower, silky and wet fanning over her back.

The water was still cool, but it steamed right off Jules’ skin. Dribbled into her throat and make her choke, but didn’t stop the rapidfire clicking of memories through her head or the fast uneven pressure of her hand. Her clit was sore and aching and the feeling was spreading through her, making her knees droop dangerously toward the floor. Jules climbed the wall one-handed, hooked her fingers over the top and hung there, spray beating her breasts while a name beat her mind and her other hand forced her legs farther apart.

She made a last-ditch effort to think boys’ chests, biceps and thighs, but those only flowed to brown calves and long black eyelashes and Jess who was with Joe who was with Jess who wasn’t—with—Jules.

Late at night, there weren’t feet shuffling impatiently outside of the stalls. So Jules could lie against the stall wall and let her legs hang so unladylike apart, let the tepid warm do a half-arsed job of washing her clean. Just like she was doing a half-arsed job of being a friend; she’d gotten a boyfriend to take her mind off Jess—it wasn’t too fair to him, but he spent most of his time eying Jules’ breasts so she figured they were even—but all it seemed to do was to focus her thoughts on what wasn’t there.

The irony didn’t bite so much as coat her all over in an invisible, nasty stickiness that seemed to linger long after Jules finally mustered the strength to reach for the soap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for the LJ contrelamontre community 'forbidden love' challenge and done in 45 minutes.


	7. Vanishing Point

In her dream the pitch is green, so green it stings the eyes, and even though the sun is at noon there is still dew on the blades and the world so everything glistens. Each line on the ground is crisp white and even the shorts of her uniform are pristine in a way they really only are when fresh off the rack. The poles of the goal-nets are free of any dents and it is warm, with just a slight breeze. Not enough to blow her hair in her face and annoy her.

In her dream they’ve just finished practice, or maybe they’ve just run to the field and are working up the energy to start practice. Either way, they are flushed, a little breathless, and there’s a sweet lazy feeling running through them that she can nearly touch, as if they’ve all the time in the world in this middle space in between places, times, appointments, families, other connections and responsibilities. Their hands just happen to graze against each other, then snag together and suddenly one of them swings—she can’t tell which—and they go down on the grass. And because it is a dream, there is a towel ready to smother their fall. It is wide, wider than any real towel is, and it is colored as brightly as the bikinis on the California beaches, and it is extraordinarily fluffy. She just has to roll on it and laugh at the sky.

So she does, and soon they’re both rolling together and their limbs tangle and then it is such an easy slide to slower, slower, slow unhurried twisting about each other, elbow running smoothly over the side of a soft breast, mouth floating across a long throat. She tangles her fingers in thick hair and pulls up the most brilliant smile on earth, and her legs shiver against strong muscled ones that slip round, drift soothingly to wrap her to that smile. When their lips meet, it seems just like kicking the ball into that perfect arc that smashes past every defender by grace alone.

“Jess? Jess?”

It’s so warm, and so sunny, and the easy jumble of them together seems so natural. It takes Jess a moment to respond. “Jules?”

“You’re…you’re thinking of Joe, right?” There’s a quaver in the voice. It’s out of place in this lovely rich world where nothing outside of the pitch and themselves exists. It starts to crack the sky.

Jess frowns and feels a sluggish strange horror creeping into her middle, spreading insidiously outward. But it has not quite reached her head, and anyway she has never grown comfortable with lying, never learned to reach first for the untruth. Her laugh is awkward in her mouth. “No. Why would I think of him? I’m with you.”

“Jess,” Jules says again, voice vibrating sharp with nerves. And her fingers are suddenly digging hard into Jess’ shoulders, and her face is dissolving into…her face.

But everything else is dissolving into what it is not: the pitch into their room, the towel into Jess’ bed, and suddenly Jess wakes. The first thing she sees is Jules, mouth open and moist-looking, as if freshly kissed, and eyes staring at her with a terrified hunger that Jess understands too well and not at all.

“I…I need to…” Jess pulls out from under the other girl and she stumbles off the bed, like the time she was drunk in Germany. Only now she feels even sicker, and she knows very clearly what she’s done wrong this time. Her hand catches the doorframe as she sways out of the hall and it hurts, but only dully, and she can barely feel her feet at all as she runs for the bathrooms.

In the stall she falls to her knees and props her elbows on the rim, holds her head in her shaking hands, and then she asks the Gurus for their wisdom. She asks God for his all-encompassing understanding. She asks, very quietly, not to lose Jules. But it’s a long time before she can stand again, and when she does she still isn’t sure of anything.

“Jess?” Jules calls. She is clutching the corner of the turn into the bathroom proper, her hands white on the dingy tiles. “Are you…are you…you were sleeping…really deeply. Are you…”

“I’m—fine.” Jess pulls at her hand, tugging her nerves out through the strands, but the queasiness in her belly still lingers. She hunches her shoulders and looks at Jules. Opens her mouth.

But Jules speaks first, speaks in a rush that leaves Jess no room. “You were dreaming. That’s okay. You know dreams aren’t real—everyone knows that. We do things in dreams that make no sense. No sense at all. It’s—it’s okay there. Y—Yeah?”

For a very, very long time, Jess doesn’t know what to say. The silence, however, goes on too long and so she finally forces something out of her mouth. It’s thick, strained, wrong. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Jules glances at the floor before backing off a step. “Yeah. It’s all right. Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for the LJ contrelamontre community 'dream' challenge and done in 31 minutes.


	8. Telephone

Tony bursts into the room and he really, truly looks like he’s about to tear into the locker room and take it to pieces. His eyes shoot around the place and then they see Joe, who’s petrified first with the bang of the door swinging shut behind Tony and second with—well, Jesus. It’s Tony, and lately Joe had been thinking they’d gotten so friendly that they could start with the old married couples, and yet Tony looks like he’s going to break Joe’s neck.

“You!” His arm is thrown out and his finger looks like it could poke holes through Joe—Tony’s not sporty but he’s pretty well in shape—and while he stalks across the room the only thought going through Joe’s head is…

…well, there isn’t one. Joe has no idea what it’s about. He is already raising his hands, and he can feel his face moving into his apology-calm-down-mate expression, but that’s because a few years of handling girls and then of handling wankers who think handling girls is sissified have trained it into him. It’s not because he’s got a clue. “Hey, hey, what’s going on?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” For a moment, it looks as if Tony is about to march right over Joe, but at the last second he swerves. Nearly sends himself into the lockers and he clips his chin on a door. That sends him back a few inches and he stumbles.

Floor’s newly done, Joe remembers. He automatically reaches out to lend a hand, but Tony glowers low beneath his brows, slaps his hand away and stumbles back to balance. Tony, good old friendly Tony, the nicest boy in the neighborhood, has lost his temper. And it’s just about scaring Joe into shitting his pants. Who would’ve thought? Tony?

“You know! You bastard.” It is the first time ever that swear words have passed Tony’s lips. At least, while Joe was around, and Joe was reasonably sure that he saw a looser side of Tony than anyone else with the exception of—

“Jess?” Joe guesses. It’s a wild guess. It’s not even a guess, actually; he was thinking about Tony, and Tony inevitably led to Jess, and then his mouth moved.

So does Tony. He makes an aborted lunge that sends Joe skittering away with huge eyes and arms coming up in front of him just in case. But slowly, because he still can’t believe it’s _Tony_ this upset, and so they don’t swing around fast enough to protect him. Tony, luckily, isn’t actually attacking him yet, but the locker doors seem to be. They bang and scrape Joe till he flails at them, and of course that just makes them recoil into him with twice the force. Finally he gets out of them and falls breathless behind the bench. On the other side, Tony’s still half-crouched like a seething tiger.

“What? What happened? Is she all right?” When he doesn’t get any answer except a harsh look, Joe feels the pit of his stomach invert so he wants to lean over and hang his head. He does lean over and rest his hands on the bench, but he doesn’t hang his head. If he did that, he couldn’t look at Tony, and if he doesn’t look at Tony, then he won’t know what’s going on. “For Christ’s sake, what happened?”

What happens to Tony isn’t really describable. His face goes in a kind of twist around his staring eyes, and part of it’s pulling back and relaxing his lips so his teeth flash, as if he’s literally chewing on the idea of killing Joe. The other parts are him sighing and turning, shuffling on his feet. Looking sharply at Joe and then away, bringing his hands up and dropping them.

Finally everything goes very smooth, and faintly sad like sometimes when they were drinking together and Joe had been turning to laugh only to catch something in how Tony grinned at him. Tony looks at his hands, flops them about as if he doesn’t know what he’s doing with them and then sticks them in his pockets. He looks down at the ground again. “She’s—she’s not hurt. Physically. I just had a call from her, and she was—man, she was crying so hard I could barely understand what she was saying.”

“Is she okay?” Joe asks, rising. And he isn’t halfway up before he smacks the heel of his hand to his forehead. “God, I’m an—of course she’s not, she’s crying—what happened?”

“She…like I said, it was hard to make out. But she kept saying your name, and Jules…”

Joe feels a little chill, but it’s snapped up almost immediately by a whoosh of relief. He’s also irritated because he’d thought that that had been settled ages ago, but at least he knows. “Oh, Jesus. Look, I just…I didn’t even know Jules felt that way till it went completely bollocks. But we dealt with it. I don’t know what’s just happened but it can’t be something I can’t fix.”

Then Joe drops his hand from his face, thinking to see Tony’s face breaking into that broad smile of his, but instead the other man looks even sadder. The relief starts to slip from Joe, tide turning inexplicably like a player coming in through a blind spot and making a quicker-than-the-eye steal. His laughter turns hollow, wisps away and then he’s left only with the rictus of his smile. “Tony?”

“She said…” Tony shakes his head and raises his hands to the ceiling as if praying. But instead of dropping to his knees, he rounds the bench and takes Joe by the shoulders. He closes his eyes and swallows.

“Tony?” The voice Joe uses is cracking and small and, he thinks, hasn’t appeared since he was sitting on the bed in the hospital and the doctor came out to talk to him and his dad about his leg.

Finally Tony meets his eyes again. The other man squeezes Joe’s shoulders, like a pinch before setting a sprain to distract from the pain. “Joe, she said she couldn’t be your girlfriend—to not expect to see her when she comes home for the holidays. She said she couldn’t because of Jules.”

“But…” Joe’s first feeling, as far as he can tell under the numb surprise, is…confusion. Beneath Joe’s feet, the ground is unsteady and he takes a step back, hoping for surer footing, but instead the ground keeps sinking and sinking and finally there’s the hard thud of the bench meeting his arse. He grips Tony’s wrist. “Jules has a boyfriend. You told me so.”

“I know, and I tried to ask what had happened to him, but I couldn’t get an answer out of Jess. She just kept saying I can’t, I can’t.” Tony has come down with Joe and it has to be awkward for him. His legs alone have to be killing him.

And because of that, Joe needs to let him go, but his arm is a steady solid support and God knows Joe needs that. He can’t think—he never was much good at thinking outside of the pitch, and now he’s got a puzzle that he desperately needs to put together but he’s barely got an idea of where to start. What would make Jess say that? He likes her, not Jules. Jules has a boyfriend. Jules had shaken Joe’s hand at the airport, and had looked at him with a little bit of apology in her eyes but nothing of attraction. Instead she’d been fussing over Jess and avoiding her mother’s fussing.

Maybe it is for the best. Joe and Jess haven’t even started, really, and already they’d been running gauntlets on their respective sides of the world. Maybe she’s decided not to keep pushing her parents—who’ve been generous enough already—and maybe she’s found someone better. Maybe Joe’s life will be nicer if it goes back to normal where he isn’t frowning over Indian history books in the bookstores and having Tony explain patiently for the tenth time what the turbans mean. Maybe it’ll be simpler if he goes back to the pitch, his team, and the occasional pick-up in bar without wasting time lingering over a pint with Tony.

Maybe, but first he needs to know what the hell had happened. He pulls at Tony and the other man goes off-balance into Joe’s shoulder. “Look, I don’t care about her—”

_\--parents and I need to call her._ That is what Joe had been going to say before Tony had fallen on him. But Tony had fallen, and it’d been Joe’s fault. So Joe swears, says sorry and starts to push Tony back up.

They get stuck, somehow. Joe’s hands on Tony’s arms, Tony’s eyes fixed somewhere around Joe’s collar and Joe’s on Tony’s mouth.

One breath, just to catch it, and then Joe tried to start what he really meant. “I need to…”

He gets stuck again. His stomach is starting to heave with all the twists he’s put into it. His fingers twist in Tony’s shirt. “Why?”

“I don’t—I’ll find out.” Very slowly, Tony peels off Joe’s fingers and steps back. He paces to the end of the locker room, then comes back to almost but not quite in front of Joe, like now he’s scared. But he can’t be scared of Joe, no matter what his eyes seem to say. Not with the way he’d come in earlier, ready to defend Jess.

Jess. Jess to Tony to Jess. It was a puzzle and Joe was staring at it, and he was beginning to think the pieces were moving by themselves so he’d never get it together.

“I’ll find out,” Tony repeated, backing towards the stairs. “I’ll…see you round.”

“Please,” Joe says. He stands up and starts for Tony, but the other man darts up two steps in one stride so Joe stays put, terrified. “Let me know.”

Because the world as he’d known it had ended. And as long as he didn’t know, there wasn’t any new one into which he could go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for the LJ cues community 'end of the world' challenge and done in 1 hour 12 minutes.


	9. California Dreamin’

California’s not a land of rain. That’s one reason Jess likes it so much—nearly every day she gets to go out and play footie—sorry, it’s soccer here—and it’s not raining, the ground’s not soggy and sucking at her precious one pair of sneakers. No, it’s hard and firm and the grass is green as a lime.

But today it’s raining.

The sky is dull dark grey, the kind of color that drains the life from people just when they look at it, and the water’s been pounding the roof ever since Jess woke up. Its rhythm hasn’t changed much. She thinks it maybe lightened up a bit around noon, but it’s mostly stayed the same hard, monotonous rapping that makes her turn up the volume of her CD player so she doesn’t go insane listening to it. It’s not like home. Even the rain’s different in America.

Lately she’s been thinking about home, and about her life before soccer, and about its good parts. She’s been missing things like the salt-and-vinegar chips that could kick the butts of the wimpy fake ones Americans think are decent potato chips, like the sweet-spicy smell of curry that always drifted around her house. Jess laughs when she remembers how she and Pinky used to complain about it, and all the stupid tricks they’d tried to make sure their clothes didn’t smell _Indian_ when they went to school. That was back before Pinky discovered getting engaged and premarital sex, when she could be halfway nice to Jess. When Jess thinks about it, she even misses the rain. In London it’s rarely this hard, or this continuous. It can last for weeks and weeks, yeah, but it’s not really unending. More like random drizzles that could come at any time but preferred to start up just when the umbrella broke.

Back in London she’d been looking forward to uni, maybe a local school, and shying away from any guy her parents tried to hustle her way, and hanging out with Tony everyday. Half-dreaming about some way where she wouldn’t end up cooking aloo gobi and cleaning house for the rest of her life—at least, not where that was the only thing she did. Sneaking off to play footie in the park. Remembering when Pinky was her friend as well as her spoiled-brat sister, and wishing in the back of her head that she could have a girl-friend like everyone else.

When Jess rolls over, she can look out the window and just barely glimpse the pitch through the sheets and sheets of rain without having to move from her sprawl on the bed. It’s nothing but muddy grays and browns and a sliver of green, but she knows without having to squint that Jules is out there. She’ll catch cold, the crazy girl.

It’s been a couple weeks since the whole mess with Jess’ dream and running to the bathroom and then panicking and calling Tony. And since then, Tony’s called back and Jess has had to shamefacedly tell him that he really didn’t need to threaten Joe, Joe has called and Jess has had a short talk with him that she still doesn’t think about because it hurts, and Jules hasn’t let herself be alone with Jess. Not really. They share the room and so they’ve got to sleep in it, but Jules has taken to coming in at late hours, long past when Jess has fallen asleep facing the door. Jess’ parents call often and talk excitedly about all the things they’re going to do when she comes home for the holidays, and Jess just thinks that she’s going _home_. Back to where it’s a little bit boring and a little bit suffocating but at least where life isn’t firing off Beckham-bends at her head every few days.

A break can be temporary, or permanent. That’s why she’s thinking. And that’s why it’s been taking her so long.

Jess flops over and listens a while longer to the music, and beyond that to the teeth-gritting sound of the rain. Going on and on and never changing, always the same depressed fearful song.

In America, everything’s different. Jules broke things off with her boyfriend a week ago—she said he wanted to go more serious, but that’s just nuts because she’s not going to do something over a couple thousand miles. America’s training so they can go back to Britain and wow their home, because what’s the point of making it good if you can’t go home and brag about it? She’d said that with one of the few smiles she’d given Jess since _that_.

America’s fun. America’s their time away from home, where Jess can do crazy stuff like walk along the beach at three in the morning. Like try on miniskirts and know what it’s like to feel the wind on her knees when she’s not on the pitch. Like kiss girls, and like it as much as kissing guys. Girl. Guy. There’s only been those two.

The earphone slips from Jess’ ear. She starts to pick it up, then drops it and shoves her feet into her sneakers.

Her hair is soaked within minutes and it’s so long that it’ll take hours to dry. Too late she realizes she’s wearing a white shirt and her bra’s showing, and so she runs to the pitch hugging herself like she’s holding in her guts. They’re twisting so much that maybe she is.

At first Jess doesn’t see Jules, but then something thumps against her foot: black and white checkers. From there it’s just reflex to look at where it came from and to see Jules swiping wet straggling bangs out of her eyes, looking at Jess like she’s crazy. Well, she is. They are. They’re this close to going back to how it was in London, but they’re not in London. They’re in California, and it’s raining, and the taste of the rain on Jules’ lips is so sweet and endless that Jess forgets to breathe.

Jules does it for her, pushing them apart. “What…”

“Cali, right? What—what happens in Cali stays in Cali.” It’s a saying Jess hears a lot, mostly from students roaring in from other parts of the country. She sounds stupid, but the rain is cold and she’s still confused and she really wants to kiss Jules again, and ignore everything else. “We’re still friends back home—we’re always friends, yeah? But…”

The way Jules’ eyes squinch up, it looks like she’s crying, but Jess thinks she’s just squinting through the water running down her face. She touches Jess’ cheek, jerks her hand away and brings it back. And finally she smiles, shaking like crazy, and grabs Jess’ hand. “Yeah.”

It’s raining, and Jess can’t see a thing but she can feel her way to Jules’ mouth, and she can feel when her foot hits the bleachers, and she can feel the jolt of them half-falling, half-scrambling beneath them. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, where this is going, but it’s just hands and mouth and Jules Jules Jules, a crescendo that aches in her breasts as chilly hands cup them, moves between her legs as her breath catches so she chokes on rain, warms her to burning as she sucks in clumps of hair from Jules’ face. It’s their knees banging together, it’s Jules dragging down her hand and showing her things to do with it against wet hot folds of flesh and coarse thick hair that make her blush even as she’s pushing her tongue harder into Jules’ mouth. It’s _Jules_ exploding from her mouth, and it’s her name muffled in the slick skin of her shoulder, and it’s their breathless, nerveless laughter as they clutch desperately at each other afterward.

Jess knows where they are. They’re in Cali. _California_. And they’re in each other no matter what, and that’s all she wants, really. That’s what she tells the fear jiggling in her stomach, that’s what she tells the buzzing in her head. And for just a minute, the sound of the rain fades before it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for the LJ cues community 'rain' challenge and done in 44 minutes.


	10. Long-Distance

“I don’t know. I can’t even pull higher than a bloody B in chemistry—why are you asking me?”

“Jess, I’m not asking you. You’re asking me. And I said—‘D’you think it’s something in the water?’ and you said…shite, I’m not going to repeat that. Mum’s entertaining in the parlor.”

“And it was mean of me. I’m sorry, Tony. Really. Didn’t mean to go off on you like that. I’m just…I don’t know what to do. Jules and I are flying home in exactly nine days and I’ve no idea what to tell anybody.”

“…you could just pretend everything’s normal.”

“Yeah, but that’s lying. And what did I say?”

“No, it’s not. It’s—it’s gentle omission of the truth.”

“…Tony.”

“Something my prof says, yeah? And I think it makes a lot of sense sometimes. I mean, yeah, lying to your parents isn’t good and I’m proud of you for having the bollocks to stop—don’t kill me, you know what I mean—but there’s lying and then there’s making sure your Dad doesn’t have a heart attack your first day back. Anyway, you never really told them about Joe.”

“Oh. Oh, no. I _have_ to tell him, don’t I?”

“Jesminder, I’d like to say no, but as the man who nearly shoved him into a locker on your behalf, I can’t. And as the man who’s been stuffing him with curries for the past two months, I say you better do it before someone else does and messes up things. Like the last time with Jules.”

“Jules didn’t _tell_ him last time—what are you talking about? She caught us and…curry. Tony? Curry?”

*long pause*

“ _Tony_. Why are you feeding him curry?”

“Look, Jess, just because I fancy men doesn’t mean I can’t turn it off when I have to. I know—I mean, I thought I knew. Joe was your bloke, so he was like my brother. He came around asking about you, since you stopped calling him and I take it Jules sort of avoided that, too? Which wasn’t very nice of you two, because everything else aside he was your coach and he cared a lot about the both of you even before everything got—”

“Tony.”

“Jess. Right. Uh, curry. Sorry. So he and I got to talking, mostly in bars because my mother keeps giving him the evil eye even though he’s never been anything but polite to her, and he asked what that wrapper-thing you’d been wearing was and I told him it was a sari, and then he asked me to help him out a bit. Teach him about our ways, you know?”

“Tony.”

“And he’s really, really missed you. He wanted it to work. He actually sat down and ate until he could figure out which curry had what in it, and by then he had tears streaming down his face. I was begging him to stop, or to have another beer anyway, but he really—”

“Tony, this isn’t making me feel any better about talking to him.”

“Oh, sorry, Jess. I just meant that he was really trying. But I think after the scene I made in his locker room, he’s got an idea of what’s coming. And he’s taking it really well. He’s a nice bloke. He’s still going to be your friend afterward.”

“…Tony, I can’t remember what I was actually going to ask you, but I don’t think that’s important anymore.” *deep breath* “You thought he was cute, didn’t you?”

“Jess, like I said, I would _never_ , ever poach—”

“I know you wouldn’t. You’re my best friend. You never would, no matter how you—he--”

*long pause*

*breathing*

“Hey. So…this…this gay thing. Is it hard? Are girls that like girls…different? I mean--”

“I’m a man. You remember, right? And yes, I’m *whispers* gay, but gay like I like men. You’ve got more of a clue about girls than I do. Hang on, Mum’s distracted. I’m going to sneak into the yard.” *sound of door shutting* “Jesminder, are you sure about Jules?”

“Of course I’m sure! She and I might have fought over Joe, but we got over that. She’s my friend. Like you, only…only she’s got breasts and can play footie. But I’d trust my life to her.”

“Um. Actually, I meant are you sure it’s her and you both liking girls and not just some kind of experimentation phase you’re going through.”

“…oh. Yeah. Yeah, I’m…sure. I mean, she had her boyfriend and she’s not a—they—right. And I…um…sort of had Joe. I…it’s different with her. I didn’t know where I was going with Joe, but I do with Jules. *pause* At least, I think I do. When I go off by myself and try to think it over, it turns into such a mess and oh, this is going to be bad.”

“Hey. Hey. I’ll be there. And Jules will, too—oh, crap. *deep breath* Never mind. I don’t like hitting girls, but Jess? If she messes with you, I’ll—”

“—threaten to toss her into a locker?”

“Cheeky.”

“Tony? You really are my friend, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So same goes. I’m…I’m going to ring up Joe soon as I get home and settled, and meet him in the park for a talk. I mean I’m breaking up with him, or whatever you do when you tell the guy you almost were going to date that that’s not going to happen anymore. And I know Pinky told me this dumb rule about exes of friends being off-limits, but I think that’s stupid and if you—”

“Whoa. Slow down. For one thing, I’m pretty sure Joe’s _straight_.”

“So am I. But still, you and he are friends, yeah? And I bet you had fun feeding him curry.”

“…maybe.”

“So I don’t want you two to stop just because of me. Or Jules. Or…oh, crap, I’ve really got to work hard at my studying, don’t I? The coach here tells me I’ve got a shot at pro, but I don’t know and I should have something just in case that blows out and Mum and Dad throw me out.”

“They won’t.”

“But we don’t know that. I…just don’t know much anymore, so I’m trying not to pretend like I do. Good thing you got that scholarship and the internship on your own.”

“Jess, I’m _not_ going after your ex-almost-boyfriend. And you’re not going to worry. You’re going to give your parents a little time, maybe drop a hint or two to see how they react, and then we’ll see about summer break.”

“And you’re going to drag Joe to a pub after I talk to him and make sure he’s all right for me, right? Because I don’t care how nice he is; still can’t be easy to hear you’re losing to…well, a girl.”

“…”

“ _Tony_.”

“…all right, all right. But you and I are going to sit down ourselves and have a long chat. This long-distance calling just makes it too easy to get things mixed up.”

“Deal. Oh, damn, I’ve got to go. English final in ten minutes. Bye, Tony.”

“Bye, Jess.” *hangs up* “Fuck.”

*hang up* “Shit.”


	11. Slant

“I think I’ll have a pint.” But instead of actually getting off his arse and doing that, Joe slouches in the back corner and stares at the wall. It has a stain on it that is the exact size and shape of a hotcake. His stomach clenches and he thinks it makes a small noise, but it’s hard to tell, what with all the racket of the bar going on around them.

America had been good to Jess. She looks beautiful, even though she also looks like she’s about to go sprinting for the door and her hands are squeezing the top of her chair. The corner of her mouth tugs into a grimace. “I’m really sorry. Joe. I would have told you sooner, except I didn’t know, really, and…I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, is there? I mean, it’s not like you can help it.” That comes out a little meaner than Joe had meant it to be, but honestly, he thinks he’s still taking it bloody well. All things considered, he should’ve been well on his way to wrecking the bar by now.

Well, except that he still cares about Jess and he doesn’t want to scare her any more than she already is, and that he’s having difficulty just feeling his toes wiggle in his shoes, and that he really would like that pint. Maybe he should drag himself back to his locker room and take a nap first, see if his head cleared.

“So…” Jess uncertainly waves her hand, her big eyes nervous on him. “Are you going to be all right? My mum’s going to miss me soon…”

She is gorgeous. When Joe looks sideways at her hair, he thinks he sees a gold sheen that wasn’t there before and that had to have come from all the running around under the California sun. She’s got a half-healed scab on her elbow and when she shifts uneasily on her feet he can see all the new muscle she’s built up. He remembers how she’d walked into that German bar, all shy and tense and awkward, and he looks at her now, sees the easy breezing grace she’s got even though she’s a bit on the nervy side, and he thinks it was a well-spent four months of waiting.

And then he remembers that right, she’s off-limits again. If she ever wasn’t in the first place.

His stomach hurts. But oddly enough, he doesn’t think he’s about to throw up, or throw a fit, or throw much of anything.

Joe drags up a smile, and somehow it’s not as fake as he expects. He even stands to see her out without much of a problem. “Yeah. I’ll just…I need a few more minutes. But you run home—they’ve not seen you in four months, after all.”

She flashes some teeth, but quick as anything her smile whizzes off her face. “Thank you, Joe. I mean it. For everything.”

And she puts out a hand—no, more like dangles it a little short because she’s not sure. It’s the same thing with Joe, who finds himself flapping his hand an inch away because he wasn’t sure where they had been before and now he’s really not sure where they are. Can he touch her? Is this allowed? Is this one of those things that’s allowed but that’s a shite thing to do nevertheless and nobody in their right mind does it?

Well, they’re both impatient. Finally one or the other starts to, and then the second follows almost at once and then they’ve grabbed each other’s hands. It’s a stiff but firm shake, and the next second they’re standing well back from each other. For a moment Joe almost puts his hands behind his back, just like he did when he was standing cowed before his upset father.

“See you,” Jess says, and she’s not at all certain about it.

“Yeah,” Joe answers, and he’s more hopeful than anything.

He flops back down while she walks out, and he stares at that weird stain some more. He could really—

\--“Pint?” Tony drops one down before Joe can answer, and then puts himself in the seat Jess just left.

Of course Joe knows why the other man’s here, but he needs that nutty, smooth beer flowing down his throat and he appreciates the way Tony just sits quietly, his silence not questioning at all but comfortingly non-pushy, and so he doesn’t comment.

* * *

But two weeks later, Tony shows up again and this time Joe has to say something.

He misses Jess. He hadn’t seen her more than once, what with the whirl in which her relatives kept her and the general awkwardness of the situation. And he did see Jules, but that was…something there had changed as far back as the day Jules had pulled Jess onto the field and Joe hadn’t noticed till it was too late to either change it or to change himself to get along with it. He knows when it’s too late.

And he really regrets that because he thought of Jules as a friend, and in some ways as close a friend as he’d ever had. Joe really doesn’t want to make the same mistake, but he’s afraid that he is. Because even though Jess and he hadn’t been able to even call each other more than once or twice a month, there’d still been some kind of connection just because they thought that they’d be dating once she got back. But now she’d done away with that, and Joe missed the feeling of having something to link Jess to him. Because now that he thinks about it, she was a friend, too. She showed him bits of a world he never would have seen otherwise, and he’d enjoyed those glimpses.

But playing cricket with Mr. Bharma was a nice, polite, distant biweekly meeting that didn’t really leave Joe raring to show up to the next one. True, he liked it, but Mr. Bharma had his reservations and understandably he was slow to lose them. And he was busy, and a generation older, and so Joe couldn’t ask him for help in crossing the gaps to the rest of their world. And Jess was either in America, or on edge around Joe, or with Jules. Or all three at once, and Jess had precious little chances to get time with Jules without raising suspicion, so Joe didn’t really want to ask much of her either.

Which left Tony, but—“Look, I really appreciate what you’re doing for me, but you don’t have to. It’s all right.”

Tony blinks at Joe, and Joe braces himself. But the other man doesn’t do anything except poke around a chunk of fish with his chip. “What are you talking about?”

“This. This…I’ll be all right, yeah. Jess doesn’t need to worry,” Joe says. He wonders if maybe kicking his feet up on the chair opposite him will make it come out more naturally, make it sound less half-hearted. Because he really does mean it, but he also doesn’t want to make that one mistake again and lose good company.

Frowning, Tony lifts the chip to his mouth. Then he freezes. His face shapes itself into an incredible grimace, and then he smacks himself on the forehead. “Oh. You think I’m doing this because Jess asked me to. Well—all right, the first time was. But hey, I’m worried about you even if she isn’t—she is, by the way, but if she weren’t I’d still be here.”

“What for? It’s not like you’re in love with me.” That was such a dumb thing to say. Joe wishes immediately afterward that he could sink into the ground.

Oddly enough, Tony looks to be in the same way. He’s frozen again.

It’s Joe’s turn to blink and wonder if the world’s flipped while he wasn’t looking. “Are you?”

Tony considers the chip and the question. Then he says, not a trace of doubt in his voice: “Not in the least.” But what he says after that is considerably less steady. “I’m not Jess. I can’t do like she does and gamble a comfortable thing on a happy thing. I’m here because I’m worried about you, and because I like blathering to you about university and listening to you go on about footie. Not here for anything more—else. Anything else.”

Joe…needs to put this into words. It’s not making sense as a thought. “So…you’re ga—”

“Shhh!” Tony hisses. “Nobody knows except Jess, and that’s how I want it.”

And then he looks over his shoulder, another confident and easy-going person reduced to nervous fright by Joe, and Joe just thinks _No_. Not again.

On the other hand, then what? He has no idea. It doesn’t look like Tony’s about to offer up any suggestions. Life isn’t going to stop for long and let him sort it out.

“No worries about me telling,” he says, dragging out the words because he’s stalling and thinking. But what it comes down to is that he’s got no clue except one single do-not-do scenario.

Okay. He can start from there. And then he can take another look after he’s gone a bit, and see what the lay of things looks like then. It’s not much different from reanalyzing the field while people are running on it. Joe hopes.

“Sorry, Tony. I…don’t spend much time with blokes at any rate, seeing as they tend to laugh at what I do.” But Joe can work on that. Joe is going to work on that, and later he’s going to work on Jess and Jules. Maybe it won’t be the same as it was, or be what he thought it was going to be, but there’s got to be something left for them. “Pass the chips?”

Tony studies him, brows drawn down and chin on fist. “You really all right?”

“Yeah,” Joe says, after a while has passed.

“All right. You can have a chip then.” The basket gets nudged over.

For a moment, they both stare at it. And then Joe laughs and whacks Tony on the shoulder for being such a tosser, and Tony stops staring like he thinks Joe might want to kill him, and it’s…something, anyway.


End file.
